


I Am FIRE

by JumpingShinyFrogs



Category: Monster Hunter (Video Games)
Genre: Character Death, Contest Entry, Description of Injuries, Eye Trauma, Gen, Horror, Mild Gore, description of corpses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27687593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JumpingShinyFrogs/pseuds/JumpingShinyFrogs
Summary: A presence awakens to a world littered with corpses beneath a black sky, with a head full of memories that aren't theirs and a singular question: why has the world turned to ash?
Kudos: 9





	I Am FIRE

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for Monster Hunter Amino's Harvest Horror Stories contest. Content warnings for the things in the tags; once again, I've tried to keep it all fairly tame, but this is still a dark fic and they're definitely there.

Something pulses, and I realise that I exist.

Beat. Beat. A rhythm from within. My world is warm and small. From beyond my world, a voice sings, and I answer it with a weak call of my own. A loud sound, and the world is still once more.

Until all of a sudden, it is not, and I am cast out into a strange place. All around me is dark, and cold, so cold. Who am I? Shards of something hard and black lie on the ground around me. They smell of life. The air smells of death.

Suddenly, I am tall. My muscles ache and my bones are crunching and grinding, stretching into new shapes. My jaws part in a screaming roar. My core feels hot. I burn from within, even though the world is cold. Memories tell me that heat comes from flickering flames that warm the night and light the dark. I am hot, so that must be me.

I am FIRE.

Nearby, something is dead, filling the air with the warm tang of blood. I look and see a dragon, black-scaled and faintly glittering, lying crumpled in a pool of its own blood. Twin stumps on its head still glow faintly purple, illuminating sharp fangs and talons. The corpse was mighty once, but now it is broken. It still smells warm. This dragon's heart was beating not long ago. But whatever life it once lived has been taken from it, and there is nothing I can do to help it.

I tear my gaze away from the corpse. All around me stand the skeletons of trees, bare and blackened. The soil below has been blasted into greasy, sticky ash. This is no place for the living.

I choose to leave. Clumsy, shaky, on unsteady legs. The sky above is pitch black. No light at all. My mind tells me this is wrong. Where is MOON? Where are STARS? Red sparks crackle in the suffocating blackness.

MOON and STARS have left me. I am alone. But I am FIRE. I will be safe.

oooOOOooo

My legs take me from the skeletal forest to the shore of an acrid lake. The stagnant water smells of decay. Legions of insects make their home on its surface. My mouth is dry, and my memories tell me that water is something which must be consumed.

My feet brush up against another corpse as I bend to drink. Unlike the last corpse, this dead wyvern has been allowed to remain whole. Its scales are green-black, its fragile wings glistening and iridescent. All across its back are open lesions, stinking of rot and crusted over with long-dried pus. Its chest is thin and hollow, as though nothing has filled it in a long time.

Two corpses so close together is abnormal, my memories tell me. Corpses are rare things, to be grieved. Not to be left to the scavengers. Although it seems to me that no creature has come to feast on this carcass. Even though it carries the scent of days spent beneath the empty sky, nothing has marred its shell aside from the sores that dot its scales.

I close my eyes and cast my mind back. I feel quite certain in saying that I did not exist until a short while ago. And yet, I recall a time when the sky was clear and blue with SUN smiling down from above, when the water was clear and the forest full-fed, when the monsters roamed wild and whole.

Something is direly wrong.

Who am I? I had thought the question answered. I am FIRE. But who is FIRE, exactly? How is it that I remember things I have never seen?

The hollow eyes of the dead wyvern stare at me as I try to drink from the lake. Bile rises in my throat at the earthy taste of stagnant muck that floods my jaws. No wonder the wyvern died here. My search for water will have to carry on elsewhere. Still, something seems off about the water, something missing from the taste. I cautiously give it another lap.

Strange. I had thought the rotten scent to be coming from the lake water, but the sour taste of rotting meat is absent. So where is the smell coming from? It's too strong to be coming from the dead wyvern alone. Perhaps the bodies are hidden under the water.

I dip my entire head into the water in search of the source. Nothing. Though the lake is murky and grimy, no bodies linger beneath its surface. Where is the scent coming from? The beating of my heart grows louder and louder until I am forced to pull up my head. The reeking stench of decay is stronger than ever.

A faint flash of movement catches my eye. I swing my head around in search of the source, but there is nothing living to be found. No wind rustles the branches of the trees. The surface of the lake is still. Just as I allow myself to relax, I notice that something has changed.

The dead wyvern is missing its head.

It definitely had its head a minute ago. In the trees, something seems to move once more, but there is nothing there. Did I imagine it? Was the wyvern always headless?

My skin has started to crawl. This is a place of danger. Cautiously, I slink away into the shadows, until I find myself a small hollow beneath the tangled roots of a tree that probably used to be mighty before its leaves crumbled away and its bark turned to char. There, I try to make myself as small as possible, and allow myself to rest. Unfounded fear has given way to exhaustion, and before long I find my eyes slipping closed.

oooOOOooo

I am beneath a blue sky. SUN blazes down from above, lighting up a brilliant green world below. Powerful wings carry me through the sky, surveying the land below as though I were its king. My scales are red, and a fire blazes in my throat. But though I carry fire within, I am not FIRE. 

I am sky. I am king.

I am RATHALOS.

Sharp eyes pick out the shapes of rival beasts as I soar the sky. My mate has been missing for three days. As I fly, I call out to her. No answering song returns. I loop another wide circle, eyeing the herds of herbivores as they charge through the plains with pack-hunters in sharp pursuit. The herd is vulnerable, and I am hungry.

I tuck in my wings and reach out with my talons to snatch up a herbivore's calf, bleeding from fangs and claws. The pack-hunters shriek and chitter their dismay, but I am RATHALOS. Their calls mean nothing to me.

I carry my prize to a secluded clearing and dig into its tender flesh. Hot blood fills my mouth, rich and warm and clean. As I feast, a rank odour reaches my nose. I pause, strings of meat still caught in my teeth. The scent of cold iron fills the air, tinged with the musk of wyverns and an achingly familiar sweetness.

I look up. There, crouched behind a tussock of grass, is a two-legged creature, bearing a metal fang across its back. I growl in warning, but the corpse-cloak only creeps closer. As it approaches, I see that it has draped itself in a wyvern's hide. My heart cries out as I recognise the vibrant green, the patterned membranes, the familiar scars and creases that mark each scale.

My queen. My mate. Reduced to no more than a trophy for her slayer to wear.

The corpse-cloak brandishes its fang, and I spread my wings in challenge and let out a mighty roar. Flames curl at my lips and mix with the smoke that pours from my throat. As the corpse-cloak rushes forwards, I spit a glob of fiery mucous. Though it explodes in a blaze of fire, the corpse-cloak is unfazed. It reaches for a small object, and suddenly my world is painfully, oppressively bright. Sparks and stars explode across my vision, leaving clouds of unreal colours behind.

Blindly, I lash out, striking with both teeth and tail. A sharp whistle catches my ear. With a furious snarl and flames building in my throat, I charge towards the sound. I will catch this corpse-cloak, and it will die this day.

But I am the one who is caught.

My legs slip out from under me as the ground falls away. Something rough and tangling winds its way around my legs, grabbing me and tying me to the ground. At last, my vision clears, but I am well and truly stuck. Crying out, I flail and thrash, until I feel the fang's bite at my neck. I call for my lost mate one final time, but no sound comes out. I no longer have the means to shriek.

I hear my mate's voice as the last of my life flows out through my throat, and the world fades away to white.

oooOOOooo

I snap my eyes open with a start, chest heaving. Gone are the bright blue skies and verdant fields of my dream. I am no longer RATHALOS. I am FIRE once more, trapped beneath a black sky and huddled beneath the roots of an old, dead tree.

In time, my breath slows. Stretching, I stand and survey my surroundings. Nothing living, as far as I can see. My mind is flooded with the memories of my dream. The world was so much brighter. All sorts of sounds and scents filled the air. My mouth waters at the thought of the rich, warm meat RATHALOS consumed.

It occurs to me that I have eaten nothing since I came into being. I feel no particular compulsion to seek any sustenance. Perhaps I am a product of the dead world, dreaming of a better time. A time I have never seen, and yet remember clearly.

With nothing else to do, I set off at a trot through the dead woods, watching for any signs of monsters. As I go, a thick rain begins to fall from the void of the sky. Each drop is as large as my eye, coloured an acrid black and faintly crackling with red sparks. Curiosity piqued, I tilt my gaze skywards. I remember rain, how it cools and heals the earth, how it leaves the world smelling muffled and clean. This rain is different. Wrong.

White-hot pain lashes across my snout the instant the first raindrops splash against it. Each red spark seems to burn, eroding my thoughts and filling the air with a harsh, droning buzz. Louder and louder the sound builds, until all thought is lost to me beneath the agonising screeching, like claws scraping on scales, like stone grinding metal, like the sound RATHALOS made as his life ebbed away. Each scream rips at my mind and stops my heart, but leaves me alive, always alive. Why not end it? Why make me suffer?

With no SUN or MOON to guide me, I have no way of knowing how long the torture lasts. Eventually, the liquid death stops raining from the sky, but the pain lingers. By the time I am able to move, to think, my muscles have grown stiff. At some point, it seems, I curled myself into a ball to try and stop the pain. It didn't work.

My muscles scream at me as I slowly pull myself up from the ground. My entire body is covered in raw, open sores, oozing blood and throbbing down to the bone. The stench of rot fills the air, thick and choking.

I think I know how the lakeshore wyvern died.

No wonder then, that the world has fallen into ruin and decay. Poison is falling from the sky. Things are worse than I had realised. Rain brings life, not death. What has happened to twist the natural order in this way?

My nose scrunches up as the scent of decay reaches me once again. Just like at the lake. Is the poisoned rain really so virulent as to have induced necrosis already?

Only the scent isn't coming from me. It's coming from elsewhere, somewhere nearby. Suddenly alert, I flick out my tongue to taste the air. My stomach recoils at the sour tang of rotten flesh in the air, clenching and roiling as if to vomit up the food I haven't eaten. It smells and tastes like there is a corpse lying somewhere close.

No. That's wrong. This is not one corpse. This is a thousand corpses, left to rot together in a pile beneath SUN.

A dead twig snaps somewhere behind me. Hissing, I swing my gaze towards the sound. There's nothing there--nothing, save the broken twig, stained with some dark ichor. Straining my ears, I slow my breath and listen. No more sounds, no noteworthy sights. The world is still and silent.

My scales are crawling now, tiny needles pressing into my nerves and screaming of looming danger. Every muscle in my body is tensed, coiled to spring into action and flee. Something terrible is lurking in the dark, something unnatural and twisted. But... there's nothing here. What am I so afraid of? What have I failed to notice?

A shimmer of movement. Only a flash, but I saw it. The air itself seemed to come alive and move, taking one careful step closer to me. The stench of death is overpowering now, threatening to worm its way into my lungs and lull me into that final sleep.

I have seen enough. Aching muscles and bleeding scales twinge as I rise to my feet and run, tearing through the dead forest towards the open sky ahead. I am far too large for such tight spaces, scraping my shoulders against the rough bark of trees as I run past. Ashen splinters dig into my raw, exposed flesh and send burning lances of agony shooting down my spine, but I can't bring myself to care. All that matters now is getting _away._ Away from this accursed forest and the spectre of death lurking in its depths.

Over the sound of my own haggard breathing and the wet thumping of my feet against slimy leaf-litter, I think I hear an answering set of footsteps, clumsy and uneven, as if a creature is galloping along behind me on four legs of different lengths.

And yet, when I turn my head and risk a glance, there is nothing there.

In the very instant I step out past the treeline, blind instinct triggers muscles I didn't know I had. With no input from me, a pair of extra limbs unfurl and claw at the air, and all of a sudden the ground is falling away, and my talons are scrabbling at nothing in search of purchase. Wings. I didn't even know they were there.

As soon as I manage to regain my bearings, I bank back around and cast my gaze down to the ground. The trees are shaking and shuddering beneath the weight of a heavy body, branches flying in every direction as whatever it is flails around in search of its lost prey.

And yet, there is still nothing there.

Am I still dreaming? I draw into a clumsy hover, newly discovered wings adjusting of their own accord. I can feel the air against the membranes, feel the little spikes of irritation as each flex of flight muscles shifts open wounds in unpleasant ways. I certainly don't _feel_ asleep.

The hammering of my heart gradually slows as the shaking stops, as the reek of decay fades and is replaced with a harsh, toxic, smoky scent instead. The sky I find myself a part of is nothing like the one RATHALOS commanded in my dreams. Instead of a clear blue backdrop and strong winds, the air is still and stagnant against a pure black background. A thin grey haze suffuses everything, and with each breath I take it seems to scratch at my throat and lungs.

Perhaps, for once, the blackened sky is a blessing in disguise. My own scales are a similar shade--a form of unnatural camouflage. If my pursuer can fly, then it is only luck which has saved me.

Of course, this assumes that my pursuer exists at all. That it isn't just a product of a lonely mind desperate to conjure some other living thing, even as an enemy.

My wings are already aching from overuse, despite how short my flight has been. Then again, I suppose this is their first time being used. I don't trust the skeleton forest, and so I angle myself towards a nearby rock ridge, a place where natural caves and crevices might provide some shielding from the poison rain. By the time I land, I am shaking from my snout all the way to the tip of my tail.

Each blister is burning, each scrape and cut and sprained muscle joining together in a chorus of agony. A gap in the rock presents itself to me, a hollow lined with old sticks and shards of something white and brittle that might once have been a wyvern's eggs. It's a tight squeeze, but I wedge myself in and allow my mind to rest. In time, my body follows.

oooOOOooo

Hungry.

I am hungry.

Hunger is all I have ever known.

The thin light of SUN reaches me through the grey haze that fills the sky, a haze that only grows thicker with each passing day. Every day the vegetation grows frailer, the air more toxic.

None of that concerns me. I care only for prey, the prey which has been growing scarcer and thinner of late. More and more, I am seeing the prey-stealers, the ones who slay wild creatures and then strip them of their skins to wear. This cannot be allowed to carry on, for I am the mightiest of beasts, and this prey is mine and mine alone.

I am hunger. I am strength.

I am DEVILJHO.

Today, I am prowling near a prey-stealer nest. This is one of the larger ones. Thick black smoke billows up from its many chimneys, filling the sky with ashen clouds. Some small part of me recognises that as a bad thing. The rest is more interested in the prize I came here to claim.

From the nest's depths wafts the rich scent of meat. It sings to me, begging me to find my way in and feast. Hunger chews at my belly, sharpening my teeth in anticipation of the hunt. A prey-stealer door bars my way.

Though I am strong, I cannot bash my way through. Growling, I decide to try elsewhere. Another door earns me much the same result. I could return to the wild places, where I once hunted endlessly, but there is no prey to be had there. The prey-stealers have taken it all away, and even the dragons cannot bring back the dead. So this is my only source of food.

Something hard and heavy smacks into my snout and cracks a few of my teeth. A rock, thrown by a prey-stealer standing just out of reach atop the wall of the nest. It garbles something at me, brandishing another stone. Heat builds in my shoulders, swollen muscles stretching out scarred hide as I let out a fearsome, bellowing roar of rage. Red thunder gathers at my jaws, burning at the inside of my mouth and clawing at my thoughts.

But I am DEVILJHO. Dragon-sparks cannot burn through my hide, nor cut through my rage.

The prey-stealer seems to realise its mistake and leaps out of the way just as a torrent of dragon-sparks erupt from my jaws. They scorch the stone of the nest, leaving a blasted black patch in their wake. Another thunderous roar, and I am slamming my shoulders against the door once more. I am starving, and this nest is filled with prey-stealers and corpses alike. The flesh calls to me, demanding I break in and lay claim to what is mine.

A prey-stealer barks at me and tosses a slab of something wet and heavy over the wall. My heart sings at the sight. Meat. It is old and slimy, covered in a slick coating of something I cannot identify, but it is meat all the same. A faint purple tinge covers it in its entirety, and it smells bitter and unnatural.

I cannot bring myself to care. Meat is meat, and I am hungry, always hungry. I gulp the offering down without a second thought. It tastes as bitter and unnatural as it smelled. The prey-stealer's lips are quirked up at the edges. I snarl at it. What does it think it has to be happy about? This tiny offering was nowhere near enough to sate my hunger.

I smash my shoulder into the door again, but the result is the same. After the third or fourth attempt, the prey-stealer on top of the wall leaves. There's a weakness in my legs, a stumble to each slam. Hunger has brought with it fatigue.

It is clear to me that there is no more prey to be had here, so I slink away with tail held low. Thick drool spills from my jaws, collecting on the ground below. Strange. My drool has never been purple before. The ever-present gnawing in my belly slowly shifts into a deeper pain, pulsing through my body in waves. By the time I have made it back to my nest, a deep chill has set in to my normally burning hide.

I try to sleep, but the growing pain in my belly keeps me awake. My vision is fuzzy, coming in and out of focus in time with the throbbing my head. My stomach lurches and clenches in an effort to remove my last meal, but I am DEVILJHO. My mouth was never meant to be a two-way path.

For the first time in my life, I am not hungry. And when at last my eyes slip closed, it is for the final time.

oooOOOooo

My eyes open, even though I had been so sure they never would again. I am not DEVILJHO anymore. Once more, I have become FIRE. I am lying in the abandoned wyvern's nest, hidden in the shade of the rocky hollow. Great heaving breaths shake my chest. This dream was not like the other. At least RATHALOS died a quick death. With DEVILJHO, it seemed to take an eternity. What did the prey-stealers do to bring such a mighty beast to its knees?

Prey-stealers. Those two-legged creatures RATHALOS thought of as corpse-cloaks. This has been the second time I dreamed of them. In both dreams, they brought nothing but death along with them.

Why am I seeing these things? I have yet to encounter RATHALOS or DEVILJHO in the waking world. Are they even real creatures? What about the prey-stealers and corpse-cloaks?

I stand up and stretch my limbs, wings included this time. Something is missing from the sensation. Tilting my head, I flex my muscles again, and this time I realise what the problem is.

There are no injuries marking my scales. Each and every blister and scrape has vanished into the aether, without leaving so much as a patch of faded scales to prove they were ever there in the first place. Even my sore muscles have healed, with no more than the usual stiffness cause by staying in one place too long.

Was I ever actually injured? Or am I still dreaming? Maybe I was never really awake. How am I supposed to know what is reality and what is fantasy?

I don't know what to do, or where to go. Unlike DEVILJHO, I feel no hunger. Nor do I feel any thirst. Still, it seems wrong to languish in a tiny, cramped cave, so I wriggle my way out into the wider world once more.

At once, I hear a strange sound. A gurgling, warbling roar echoes through the rocky ridge. I freeze, every muscle in my body locking in place. For the first time, I have confirmation that I am not alone in this world. For some reason, the thought does not fill me with excitement.

The stench of rotten flesh slams into me so strongly it sends me reeling back as though it were a physical thing. And this time, there is no lake or open wounds to muddy my senses. I spread my wings and launch into the sky as quickly as I can.

It seems I moved in the nick of time, for no sooner have I taken off than a distorted, warbling shriek heralds the arrival of a creature I cannot see. A patch of vaguely four-legged air shimmers, and the spot where I once stood is suddenly splattered with dark ichor in the shape of a claw-swipe.

I keep myself as still as I am able, hoping against hope that my dark scales will keep me hidden from my unseen pursuer. But alas, the same trick will not work twice.

The hidden creature smashes into me with no warning, ripping me from the air like a stray piece of prey. It takes all my willpower not to dry-heave at the unholy stench that pours from its body. Its claws are as cold as stone, covered in a thin layer of slime that might once have been blood. It forces me to the ground, and suddenly there are teeth digging into the side of my face, clenched around my eye and tugging as if to pull it right out of the socket.

I thrash my neck, writhing and flailing with all my might. With one final, herculean effort, I twist my face out of its grip, but not without paying the price. A terrible ripping sound and an unpleasant feeling of cold air in my eye socket confirm my worst fears.

I no longer have a right eye.

With a shrieking war cry, I lash out blindly with a claw, catching something cold and meaty in my grip. A flap of skin comes away on my claws, and with my intact eye I catch a glimpse of something cursed, something terrible and twisted and _wrong._

Beneath the scraps of purple, shimmering dragonskin lies a face of skinless flesh, split by a slackjawed maw lined with crooked yellow teeth. Putrid, viscous drool dribbles from beneath its lolling tongue. It has no eyes, at least not that I can see with my damaged vision. The glimmering gold of my lost eye vanishing down its throat is the last thing I see before the creature suddenly lunges for me once more.

This time the crooked teeth come together in my chest. How does this creature function? I hesitate to even call it a creature--this is a corpse, something which died a long time ago and yet still moves. Dead things do not move. But living things do not carry the stench of rot or the cold touch of ice about them. This abomination is neither alive nor dead. It is BETWEEN.

BETWEEN digs its fangs into my chest, and though I try to slash its face open with my claws, I succeed only in ripping away a tiny bit more of its outer skin, exposing more of the raw, cold flesh beneath. BETWEEN doesn't seem to notice. Hissing, I smash my tail into the spot where I think its belly is. Still its jaws remain fixed in my flesh.

My last option is the most painful one. I roll onto my feet, twisting my body out of BETWEEN'S grip and leaving a gobbet of flesh behind as I do. A sickening crack rings out as I finally wrench myself free of the corpse's grasp. Though my sight is limited and lacks depth, I still catch a glimpse of BETWEEN as I whirl around to face it once more.

Its jaw is broken. Where before its mouth was open in a reeking grin, now its lower jaw is crooked and hangs at an unnatural angle. BETWEEN seems unaffected by this, and to my horror, a faintly visible forelimb comes up. With a harsh _snap_ , BETWEEN shoves its mangled jaw back into place. As if nothing happened, it shrieks in its warbling, distorted voice and leaps towards me.

I just barely duck out of the way in time. Rearing onto my hind legs, I come down hard to smash my entire weight on its body. It makes no sounds or movements to indicate I had any effect on it. It doesn't even flinch. Instead, it uses our proximity as an opportunity to rake its hidden claws across my belly, tearing up scales and armour plating and sending a torrent of my blood spraying onto the ashen ground below.

It hits me in that instant that there is no winning this fight. BETWEEN is not alive. It feels no pain. What is the use of trying to kill a body that is already dead?

I have to get away. To linger here would be to die. I sink my teeth into the flesh of BETWEEN'S foreleg (or what I think is its foreleg) and twist, desperately trying to break something long enough to cripple it. It seems more surprised by the contact than anything else, and yet another scrap of its see-through outer skin comes away in my jaws, exposing its true rotten appearance once more. A yellowed bone sticks out at an awkward angle from the fleshy appendage, but I cannot say whether I am responsible for that or if that is simply how BETWEEN is.

Shamefully, I find myself with no options left other than to turn tail and flee. With only one eye and bleeding wounds on my chest and belly, my flight is clumsy and halting, but adrenaline masks the pain and gives me strength. While BETWEEN considers its now-skinless leg, I take off, choosing a random direction and committing to it. Something made of stone rises above the land ahead.

By the time I crash land, inside of a shallow mud puddle filled with bones and stinking of waste, I wonder how it is that I am still alive to begin with. I have bled so much that I must surely be dry and hollow by now. Everything hurts, but especially the bites and scratches on my chest and barrel.

The place where my eye once rested is uncomfortably cold. Nerves which have never known the touch of air twitch in protest at each tiny gust that blows into the empty socket. Despite knowing that my eye is missing and that is why my vision has been cut in half, I feel the urge to open my right eye. Instinct insists that it is merely closed, even though my eyelids are wide open.

It takes a long time before I muster the strength to stand once more. BETWEEN is nowhere to be seen, nor smelled. If it tried to pursue me, then I have managed to lose it. Of course, there is another, less pleasant option. That it knows where I am, and is simply taking some twisted pleasure in watching me suffer. After all, it tracked me earlier.

I crawl from my muddy landing site, thick globs of cold sludge sliding from my scales as I go. I haven't died yet, but staying in this septic cesspit is a surefire way to ensure I will. Through force of will more than anything else, I manage to drag myself over a small rise in the ground. I need to find a place to hide and recover, in case BETWEEN managed to follow me after all.

As I crest the hill, an unnaturally sheer structure rises up from the nearby plains. I blink. This shape seems familiar to me. Stone walls reinforced with metal and some shimmering steely substance that my mind tells me is dragonskin. A cluster of chimneys belching thick black smoke into the air.

This is a prey-stealer nest, like the one DEVILJHO visited in my dream. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I would say it is the same one. Slowly, both so as to avoid unwanted attention and because my injuries simply will not let me go any faster, I creep up to the nest. There are no signs of life to be seen on its walls. Perhaps that is for the best.

Cautiously, I skirt around the perimeter. Several thick doors bar the entrances. One of them is looking a little dented. Of course, it is probably a coincidence. I travel further along the outer wall, and soon come to a spot that seems uncannily familiar. A moment of searching, and I find what I was looking for.

There is a patch of blackened stone near the top of the wall, right near a spot with a gap for a prey-stealer to sit. A burnt patch caused by that red energy that DEVILJHO thought of as dragon-sparks. The same energy, I suspect, that is responsible for poisoning the rain. Energy that burns the skin and chews at the mind.

DEVILJHO was real. It lived and died at this very nest, searching for the food the prey-stealers had taken from it. And if DEVILJHO was real, then RATHALOS was probably real too.

Why did I see their deaths in my dreams? What do RATHALOS and DEVILJHO have to do with me?

If they were real, then their wounds must have been real too. How is it that I am still alive? RATHALOS died far faster of wounds far less severe. One blow to the neck from a corpse-cloak's false fang, and he was down. Surely BETWEEN'S filthy teeth should be causing a sickness in the wound, if nothing else. It occurs to me that this is something I would have no way of knowing. Neither RATHALOS nor DEVILJHO had a tainted wound when they died.

The thoughts crash and roll over each other like waves on the ocean (and how do I know what that is?). With great difficulty, I wrestle control of my mind long enough to realise that outside the prey-stealer nest is the worst place imaginable to have an existential crisis. Forcing exhausted muscles to work once more, I skitter away to find a place to hide.

The best I am able to find is a small tunnel in the ground, hollowed out by sturdy claws and reinforced with dried mud. It leads to absolutely nowhere, but its ending chamber is large enough for me to curl up in, even if it's a tight and painful squeeze. I suspect some wyvern dug it, one which was far smaller than I am. It doesn't matter. It should shield me from BETWEEN'S attention, and that is all I need.

My thoughts whirl in circles for who knows how long, folding in on themselves and colliding to form new ideas that are just as quickly discarded. Nothing makes sense anymore. I am adrift on a sea of my own disjointed memories, memories I should not have, of creatures I have never seen, in a world I have never known. A world that is real, nonetheless. Who am I?

I am FIRE.

I am FIRE.

I am FIRE.

Even if I don't know what that means anymore.

Abruptly, something caught rather irritatingly in between my teeth pulls me out of my reverie. Flicking at it with my tongue to dislodge it, I find it to be a scrap of skin. BETWEEN'S skin, to be exact. It must have gotten stuck on my teeth when I bit BETWEEN on the leg. Strangely, it doesn't exactly smell like BETWEEN. It still carries the scent of decay, but nowhere near as strongly as its owner. And there's another scent there too, buried beneath the smell of rot.

This purple skin smells of chlorophyll and dappled daylight, of leaf litter and insects. My muddled memories tell me the source of such scents: they are found in living forests. When I tilt it in just the right way, the skin seems to vanish, leaving a patch of rippling air behind. It's as if the owner of the hide could turn invisible at will.

This skin, I realise now, was never BETWEEN'S to begin with. The abomination has merely stolen it away for itself and used it to cover up its own exposed flesh. The purple colour and odd texture bring to mind a long-tongued dragon, capable of masking its hide from view to creep around forests unseen. A strange image. I have never seen such a creature, in dreams or otherwise.

And yet, I suspect it to be a real being. If I think, I can even put a name to it--CHAMELEOS. Yet another thing I should not know of. Regardless, BETWEEN must have slain this CHAMELEOS and taken its skin to use as a veil. No wonder then, that BETWEEN was always invisible to me, when it stalked me by the lake and in the forest. Only its scent gave it away.

A shame none of my dream-memories taught me about BETWEEN. Perhaps knowing about it could have saved me the pain of meeting it the hard way. If I sleep, I fear I will not wake up again. Still, maybe a new dream-creature will have some wisdom to share before I go. Maybe one of them knows what comes after.

I let the flap of purple skin fall to the ground. At last, my wounds have caught up to me, and I suddenly feel hopelessly, desperately tired. Is it my time, now? My time to slip away and become a confusing vision in someone else's dreams? Some part of me feels this should upset me, but I cannot say it does. Surrendering myself to sleep is as easy as letting my remaining eye slide shut.

oooOOOooo

Dragon-sparks sting at my scales as I beat my mighty wings and climb higher and higher, piercing the accursed black veil that now plagues the world. But dragon-sparks have never posed me any real threat. I feel my heated scales cool as ice and thunder push to replace fire and dragon in my horns. I let the elemental tide wash over me, cresting the waves with the ease that comes from thousands of years of practice.

Smoke clogs my lungs and fills my mouth with the taste of poisoned ash. I snarl at the foul taste. Who do the death-prey think they are, polluting _my_ skies with their filth? Were it not for their accursed flesh-beast, I would tear them all apart myself.

The bite from my last encounter with the living corpse still stings, as do the countless tiny wounds left by swords and spears. But I shall not let it bother me. As long as I have my horns, I am above such simple earthly matters. For I am the greatest of all dragons, the apex of life. There is nothing, be it living or dead, that would ever dare to stand against me. I am a fusion of all aspects of life, of ice and fire and dragon and lightning and water, blended together into a perfect being.

I am twilight. I am dominion. 

I am ALATREON.

At last I pierce the fog of death-prey poison and find myself above the black veil. Blue skies and SUN'S soft light press into my glittering scales, warming me to my core. Beneath their kind gazes, the tooth-marked wound doesn't ache quite so badly. The living corpse cannot chase me up here. Though it bears metal plates in a laughable facsimile of wings on its back, it lacks the skill to climb so high. In fact, I dare say that none save myself and the silver-scaled star dragons could ever hope to reach these heights.

I haven't seen any silver-scales recently. It seems the death-prey have gotten to them.

I linger in the upper sky for as long as I am able, but not even I can fly forever. In time, my head grows foggy from the thinner air, and my wings begin to tremble, demanding that I land.

Reluctantly, I comply, folding my wings up for a dive. As soon as I am back beneath the toxic haze, I once again find myself weighing the pros and cons of launching a one-dragon attack on the nearest death-prey nest.

The chimneys make an easy target, and they are the source of all my woes. Of all the world's woes, really. Poison smog has mixed with the dragon-sparks released from the blood of dragons to create a lethal cocktail in the air. It does me no harm, for I am ALATREON and I will not be brought low by such trifling matters, but the lesser beasts of the world are another story. Acid rain and mind-numbing red lightning have killed the weakest outright, and left the rest fighting over what little scraps of food are left.

I care little for lesser beasts, but they do make for pleasant snacks. Perhaps it would be worth the effort. Certainly, as the greatest of life's children, I would find it to be an easy feat. And yet the death-prey make me uneasy. I cannot be sure why. I was making quick work of them before they set their abominable animated corpse on me.

Lately, the corpse has taken to coating itself in clearskin hide to escape my view and strike unseen. A coward and a crime against nature all at once. Its mere existence is an insult.

I find a relatively intact spot near the shore of a stagnant lake and fold my legs for a rest. A dead boltcrest lies sprawled out near the waterline, killed by poison rain from the looks of it. If it weren't so putrid, I might consider eating it, as degrading as it would be to scavenge. Food is scarce beneath this darkened sky.

There's a strange smell in the air. Not the overpowering stench of rotting flesh that fills the air when the living corpse is nearby. No, this is an altogether stranger scent. I follow its source until I am lead to a small copse of dead trees. The sight I happen across is an unusual one.

It's an egg. An obsidian-black, perfectly smooth egg, with no patterns or other markings on its surface that might help me identify its parentage. I give it a cursory sniff and find it to be alive. Despite the fact that it is lying on the ground in a patch of dry soil with nary a leaf nor a stick to shield it from the elements, it seems as hale and healthy as the most carefully guarded offspring of a red or green fire wyvern.

Its strange scent means I cannot identify its species. Although, I cannot help but notice that it seems to carry the scents of multiple different creatures at once, from the smallest of pack-hunters right up to the mighty hungermaw. It also smells rather strongly of the life-crystals that grow in that strange land beyond the sea, where currents of life flow so thickly that certain dragons have made their homes there just to drink from them.

Whose egg is this? And why have they abandoned it?

Grimly, I wonder if perhaps this unborn hatchling's parents have already perished. My heart cries out at the thought of this tiny life snuffed out before it really gets to begin. Just like my own chick, when poisoned rain tainted its food and left it pitifully crying out all night. There was nothing I could do to help it, save provide a warm beak and soft lullabies to keep it company until its chirps faded into silence.

I put my ear to the egg and croon. A tiny heartbeat and faint squeak answer back. Perhaps the kinder thing to do would be to crush it now, before the world has the chance to do so. And yet, I cannot bring myself to do it. This egg feels important somehow. I am the greatest of living things, but something tells me that this little unknown creature is special. Maybe, one day, it might even surpass me.

I would be a cruel ruler indeed if I allowed such potential to peter out before its time. Instead, I sit by the egg and keep watch over it. It seems to be doing fine without my help. Warmth rolls out from its core, seemingly created from nothing. It seems the hatchling inside has already figured out that it is better to depend only on yourself.

A warbling roar ripples through the air and freezes my blood. The living corpse is near. Just as I rise to my feet, its unmistakable odour slams into my nose full-force, followed by its barely visible body crashing into the rest of me. As I roll with the impact, I deliberately angle myself away from the egg.

The living corpse feels no pain, and even my vast elemental powers are useless to stop it. Experience has taught me that much. But it is a stupid beast, incapable of thought, and that makes it predictable. It blindly attempts to devour the most life-rich creature it can find with a single-minded determination. It is only natural it would target me.

It lunges forward with crooked jaws aimed at my neck, but I simply step aside and use the opportunity to smash my thick tail straight into one of its hindlegs, shattering a bone and sending the corpse reeling. It may not feel pain, but even it cannot stay balanced with a broken leg. It lurches in place, and I press my advantage.

The clearskin cloak it wears makes landing my strikes difficult, but I have tangled with the abomination enough times to know how large it is. My tusks dig into the putrid flesh of its neck. I have long since learned that it has no throat to tear out, but I allow flames to flood my jaws nonetheless, out of anger more than anything else. At once, the fragile clearskin disguise begins to smoulder. The shimmering veil that hides it from view starts to flicker, revealing the true shape of the creature.

Ah. Why did I not realise this sooner? Living clearskins fear fire, for their hide is particularly prone to catching. It is only natural, then, for the living corpse's suit of stolen skin to react poorly to it. Screeching my rage, I flood my scales with so much heat that smoke begins to curl around me, adding to the toxic cocktail in the air. The sheer force of my power turns the surrounding soil to ash in an instant. For a brief moment, I worry for the black egg, but a quick glance tells me it is fine. It's as if it's immune to the heat.

The living corpse kicks its shattered leg a few times, forcibly smashing the bones back into place. By now, the heat has rendered it almost totally visible. It gurgles and brandishes its mismatched claws, rearing up for a clumsy swing with tongue lolling out of its mouth to taste the air. Just as I snarl and tense my muscles to dodge its attack and strike back, it does something I have never seen it do before: it pauses.

The tongue flicks at the air, and slowly, the corpse turns its sightless gaze towards the black egg lying on the ground. Saliva floods its jaws, even more than usual, and it suddenly breaks into a gallop, having lost all interest in me. I hiss and pounce, latching onto the corpse's stumpy tail with so much strength that I tear it right off. The carcass stumbles at the sudden loss of its tail, but pays me no mind.

Just what is in that egg, that could make this life-seeking carcass hunger so deeply for it?

Whatever it is, I cannot allow the corpse to have its way. Spreading my wings, I leap clear over the carcass to stand between it and its prize, horns sparking and teeth bared. It shrieks at me, in its wet, distorted voice, globs of rancid spittle flying from its maw. 

Seizing the moment, I butt my horns into the flesh of its neck, impaling it straight through the throat. A banal way to use the spires that crown me as queen, but finer techniques have never worked on the corpse. One of my horn's points catches on something metallic within the flesh, and for the first time, I hear a sound of _fear_ from the corpse. It slashes at my throat with its claws, but I barely notice. Something about this spot has frightened it, and I am not one to let weakness go unpunished.

Suddenly, it thrashes violently, and a sickening crack shatters whatever focus I had left. Then I am on the ground, and the carcass is fleeing, stopping only to pick up its lost tail. My head feels uncomfortably light, and to my horror, I see a shard of familiar black bone lodged in the flesh of the carcass' throat as it runs off into the trees, vanishing once more as it leaves the heated air.

I try to stand, to reclaim my lost symbol of power, but my legs don't want to work. Glancing around, I see a steadily widening pool of blood on the ground. Oh. It seems that last slash was more severe than I realised. Blood is pouring from my throat and horn stumps at an alarming rate.

It seems this is where I meet my end. I am not so arrogant as to think I can come back from this. The wound is too deep, and what am I without my horns, anyway? Better to face death with dignity than to live on as a shadow of my former self.

I glance around in search of the egg. Has it survived the encounter? It would be a terrible shame for it to die along with me. My searching eyes land on it before long, still nestled in its little patch of ashen soil. Its shell is smeared with soot, but my fading sense of smell tells me that it has survived.

Perhaps it is a product of the blood loss and exhaustion, but I swear that my own scent has been added to the mixture emanating from the egg. Almost as if I had become a part of it. The thought fills me with an inexplicable joy. Though I will soon be gone from here, my legacy will live on in this little black egg.

As my sight fades, I hear a sharp sound. A thin spiderweb of cracks has appeared on the shell. Despite myself, I let out a purr of contentment. The egg has survived, and now its inhabitant is free to make its way out into the wider world.

Goodbye, little one. I hope your life was worth mine.

oooOOOooo

I open my eye, and I am back in the tiny hole. Alive, when by all rights I shouldn't be.

No, not my eye. My eyes, both of them. Impossibly,my right eye has returned to its socket as healthy and functional as if it had never been lost to begin with. A quick glance at my chest and belly find them just as intact. It's as if BETWEEN and its terrible bite were no more than a dream.

Just like my dream of ALATREON. Only... that was no dream. That was a memory. Not a false memory, like the others, but a true one. Just from a different point of view. Because I remember what ALATREON saw. I remember being huddled inside a tight, warm space, squeaking in response to a larger voice, hearing the sounds of battle, and awakening to a patch of blasted soil and the carcass of a fresh-killed dragon lying nearby.

That was my egg. I am the tiny life that ALATREON fought off BETWEEN to save.

Before she died, ALATREON noticed something. She noticed that my egg smelled odd. She thought it carried the scents of many different creatures at once. Including her own, at the end.

I think she was right. I cast my mind as deep into my memories as I can, and I realise that RATHALOS, DEVILJHO, and ALATREON are not the only deaths I remember.

I recall TIGREX, caught in a snare on a mountain peak and left to freeze to death beneath a winter sky. I remember JAGGI, how his pack was captured and he was left to fend for himself, until the day a young prey-stealer drove its blade into his belly and ended it. I remember GLAVENUS, and KHEZU, and BASARIOS, and countless more besides.

Thousands of deaths, their last moments choked with terror and rage and despair. When they died, their energy flowed from them, tinged with their lingering hatred and bitterness, and slowly gathered together to form something new.

And from their sorrow, I was born.

I finally understand who and what I am. I am the desire for vengeance given shape, given the form and power to avenge each and every pointless death. Even BETWEEN cannot inflict lasting wounds on me. And who am I to deny the dead?

In each vision, the source of the world's trouble was the same: the two-legged flesh-stealing creatures that seem to think themselves above nature. ALATREON was the greatest of creatures, but I have surpassed her. In life, she never got the chance to take the fight to its source. I think it is time I set right what once went wrong, and end this nightmare once and for all.

I crawl from my hole and spread my newly healed wings, pushing at the air as though it had personally offended me. From my memories, I recall a place visited by someone who had been called KUSHALA DAORA. It is a great nest located in the centre of the colony, where countless death-prey swarm at all times. It even has the chimneys that ALATREON believed are causing the sky to turn dark.

I think I will pay it a visit.

Constructing a map from the deaths I remember, I swiftly tear across the sky. Soon, the ground below grows lumpy with countless death-prey nests, illuminated against the dark haze by tiny torches and glowing insects. Of course the creatures would have found a way to spare their own selves the dreariness of the dark.

Some of them scream as I pass overhead. Good.

Before long, I reach the outer wall of a great nest, so large it makes the one DEVILJHO attacked look small. Mountains shield it on one side, a flat plain guards the other, and smaller nests surround it in a formation that reminds me of a nest of insects. A nest of insects just begging to be stomped on.

Shrill voices call out as armed prey-stealers come out to meet me, brandishing blades and fangs alike. One of them is even holding a miniature cannon. I would be afraid, if I hadn't already learned that nothing can wound me for long.

Just as I start to ponder how to dismantle the nest, a familiar warble and blast of foul air signals the arrival of BETWEEN. It lunges for me and slams me out of the air just as before, ripping away a chunk of my scales as it does. But this time I am ready. I twist out of its grasp, ignoring how another scrap of hide is scraped away, and strike it with my tail.

The force of the blow sends it back, but it wastes no time in charging at me once more. It seems to have repaired its damaged CHAMELEOS skin and rendered itself invisible once more. Recalling what ALATREON did in my dream, I let my inner heat flood my jaws, and to my surprise, it actually works.

BETWEEN'S outline wavers, until the patch of shimmering air is fully revealed as a grotesque, four-legged beast with limbs of uneven lengths and a crooked jaw. Its disguise cannot handle the heat, just like ALATREON thought. And if one of her tricks worked, then the other may as well.

Where was the spot she targeted during her final fight? It was a spot on BETWEEN'S neck, a seam where there was something metallic hidden just beneath the surface. BETWEEN leaps towards me with claws and fangs bared, and I duck to one side and reach out with my own jaws and talons.

I catch BETWEEN by the neck in the strongest grip I can muster, and though the abomination flails and gurgles, I refuse to let it free. It guarded its neck, even though it doesn't have a throat. So what happens if I break it?

Digging my fangs into its spongy, putrid flesh and ignoring the rancid taste, I use my claws to put as much pressure on the corpse's neck as possible. Its gurgling has turned from a warbling war cry to a high, frantic keening, as if it realises it is in danger for the first time in its un-life. Its fear is no concern of mine. With one claw, I pull, with the other, I push, and BETWEEN'S neck _snaps_ like a dry twig.

BETWEEN lets out a horrible, shrieking death-rattle, but despite its twisted neck, the carcass is still moving. It seems that was not enough, but close. Behind me, I hear a corpse-cloak cry out. I huff. It should be quiet and wait its turn. I'll be coming for it next. For now, I focus my efforts on BETWEEN, and with one final jerk of my claws, I pull its head clean off.

The head I toss to one side, the body I keep in my grip as it jerks and spasms, until finally it goes limp, dead at last. No, not dead. It was never alive. Rather, it has been broken, like a discarded toy. That is all it was in the end. Just a toy, made by the death-prey to try and oust the wild creatures from their place.

The death-prey on the walls of the nest are shrieking and screaming at the sight of their precious corpse finally falling in battle. Though I am bleeding from scores along my back and shoulders, a leer spreads across my face. I spread my wings and leap into the air, swooping towards the entrance to the nest. Countless terrified faces stare up at me. Some of them are garbling a certain word.

Each and every death-prey here has a world of their own to return to. A family and hatchlings inside a cozy nest. A shame none of them will ever get to return.

I take a deep breath and recall how I revealed BETWEEN earlier. I take my inner FIRE and draw it up from my chest into my mouth. One breath, and I make the internal external. My fury explodes forth in a torrent of heat and ash, melting stone and metal and death-prey alike as the combined rage of thousands of dead makes itself known at last.

So great is the heat that I need not beat my wings; the warm air alone is enough to keep me aloft. The gout of flame spreads across the entire forward face of the nest and reduces half the stone to slag before I am finally forced to pause for breath. Leisurely, I descend and pick my way through the remains, scooping up dead bodies as I go and fastening them to my scales. Those who are in their death-throes, I silence with my talons.

With nothing in the sky to guide me, I lose track of time as I shatter each and every creature that ever dared to defile the laws of nature. The great chimneys of the central nest are torn down before I move onto the rest of their civilisation, ripping apart decades of work in a single long night.

Some of the corpse-cloaks manage to flee with most of their limbs still attached. Those, I leave alive as a warning to the others. They've taken to calling me something, and I want that name to be spread far and wide. I am FIRE no longer. Death has given me a new name.

I am destiny. I am destruction.

I am FATALIS.


End file.
